DARTMOUTH — A pharmaceutical executive told the region's business community recently that the planned Massachusetts Accelerator for Bio-Manufacturing in Fall River will be a game changer for the SouthCoast.

DARTMOUTH — A pharmaceutical executive told the region's business community recently that the planned Massachusetts Accelerator for Bio-Manufacturing in Fall River will be a game changer for the SouthCoast.

Currently under construction as the first building in the SouthCoast Life Sciences Park, the accelerator will "provide access to the expertise and equipment needed by companies to demonstrate (that) their products will work at full scale manufacturing," said Paul Marshall, senior vice president of operations at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, who spoke at a Jan. 25 breakfast meeting of the SouthCoast Development Partnership.

And that's a service that drug companies will travel long distances to access, he said.

"I can easily see this facility being leveraged by biotech companies, across not just the country, but the world," said Marshall. "I myself have had to go to Germany, I had to go to Switzerland, and in a couple of cases I had to go to Taiwan, to get my products developed"¦I've moved facilities, full-scale manufacturing facilities, to tax-advantaged countries and built those facilities there. (But this process) is while you're still in the R&D tax credit from the U.S. government (phase). There is no reason why you should not be doing this work in the United States."

A New Bedford native and UMass Dartmouth alumni, Marshall said the MAB will "be able to give people a therapeutic product that when it's done they can take through their animal trials to demonstrate...that this drug works and that it works to cure the therapeutic condition that its being developed for."

"I'm a huge believer in this endeavor and I can't tell you enough that you have a tiger by the tail," said Marshall. "If this place goes where I think it can, everyone will know about it in the next four years."

A UMass Dartmouth project, the MAB will be a 35,000-square-foot state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing facility located off Route 24. It is being funded through a $14.6 million capital grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, another $10 million in capital funds from UMass Dartmouth, and $3 million anticipated to come from equipment grants and corporate donations.

In December, MLSC approved an additional $6 million in funding that will support an expansion to the capacity of four planned labs, according to MLSC spokesman Angus McQuilken.

Additional funding will allow the facility to make better use of designated lab space, incorporating advances in equipment that include significant reductions in machine size, according to Paul Vigeant, assistant chancellor for economic development for UMass Dartmouth.

By using smaller, moveable equipment, the four planned lab spaces, originally designed to only serve two clients at a time, will now allow for four clients at one time, Vigeant said.

Vigeant said the university is thrilled that the building flexibility will allow it "to both serve more private clients and to more easily integrate our graduate and undergraduate workforce."

In his comments, Marshall also praised the flexibility of the facility saying it will accommodate the needs of nearly every biotech company. He also said the timing is right for it.

A shift in funding priorities among investors has resulted in more research and development efforts being outsourced and that is a trend that the accelerator can take advantage of, Marshall said.

R&D spending "is viewed as a liability. It is a liability to shareholders. It sucks money. It doesn't produce revenue. Now this is a real big sea change in the investment community for biotechnology," he said.

The SCDP breakfast also featured speakers on other regional economic development projects, including a planned marine terminal in New Bedford to support the offshore wind industry.